Press
October 21, 2009
Students Aren't Learning Math. Can NCLB Help?
(From The New Republic, October 16, 2009)
By SEYWARD DARBY
New statistics show that U.S. students are struggling to learn basic math. The 2009 results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in math, a test given every two years to fourth- and eighth-graders nationwide, were released this week. Although average overall scores have doubled since the NAEP was introduced in 1990, results have completely flat-lined among fourth-graders, and the achievement gap between white and black students isn't narrowing.
The New York Times notes that such trends could be linked to the enactment of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2002:
They [the test results] show that scores grew faster during the seven years before the federal law's enactment. During those years, average fourth-grade math scores grew by 11 points, to 235 in 2003 from 224 in 1996, and eighth-grade scores grew by eight points, to 278 in 2003 from 270 in 1996. In the six years since the law took effect, fourth-grade scores have risen by five points, to 240 from 235. Eighth-grade scores have risen by an equal amount, to 283 from 278. (emphasis added)
This would seem a blow to supporters of NCLB, which requires that schools demonstrate regular progress by reporting students' results on statewide standardized tests. Pedro Noguera, professor of teaching and learning at NYU, tells me that NCLB has "narrowed the quality of teaching" and diminished the scope of curricula standards to only those areas that will help students succeed on the state tests, which are often crafted--as in, dumbed down--to make sure students will succeed at rates Washington will approve of. "All of the indicators are showing that this strategy isn't working," Noguera says. "Far too many kids are bored in schools, doing passive learning and test prep." The result? Among others, dwindling NAEP scores, because students aren't equipped to do well on national exams.
Continue reading "Students Aren't Learning Math. Can NCLB Help?"....
October 15, 2009
America Needs A Leveraged Cry-Out
(From Forbes, October 14, 2009)
By DAN GERSTEIN
President Obama took a break from health care and war planning Oct. 9 to finally take a public stand against the corrupt capitalism that spawned last fall's financial crisis. After nine months of legislative passivity, interrupted by a few high-minded speeches, Obama held a White House press event to call out the big-moneyed interests gumming up his regulatory reform plan in Congress. Normally I'd say it's better late than never. But judging from the gap between the president's tough tone and the meager measures he is now prepared to fight for, it seemed like Obama was doing little more than salvaging the terms of his (our) surrender.
The Changer-in-Chief long ago gave up on the idea of dismantling and remaking the crazy-quilt regulatory system that Wall Street (along with its Washington enablers) rigged for its own enrichment at everyone else's expense. Rigged, that is, to allow banks to buy their own credit ratings, choose their own federal regulators, peddle mortgages to home buyers they knew could not afford them, repackage those junk loans into what they knew were junk securities and pawn off the risk on taxpayers for their botched bets.
Instead, Team Obama opted to move around the deck chairs within the existing bureaucracy, daftly hoping this conformist approach would be enough to prevent another titanic meltdown. The piece de lack of resistance? Making the Federal Reserve--which failed miserably in preventing the housing bubble from blowing up and protecting the economy from Wall Street's gambling binge--the primary line of defense against systemic risk.
Continue reading "America Needs A Leveraged Cry-Out "....
October 13, 2009
AFT Announces First Recipients Of Innovation Fund
(From Education Week, October 9, 2009)
By STEPHEN SAWCHUK
Eight affiliates of the American Federation of Teachers plan to scale up new models for teacher bargaining, recruitment, evaluation, or compensation--including some that would incorporate student test scores--with their cut of $1.2 million from the first round of grants from the union's Innovation Fund.
The reform initiative is the centerpiece of the AFT's drive to encourage school improvement efforts that are developed collaboratively between teachers and administrators.
"This will be viewed in retrospect as one of the most important days in real education reform," AFT President Randi Weingarten said last week at a press conference here at the union's headquarters to announce the winners of the financing. "Our unions are not afraid to take risks and to share responsibility for student success. We are not adverse to change; we are leading it."
The Innovation Fund, which totals $3.3 million, has received financial backing from five private foundations. They are the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.
Continue reading "AFT Announces First Recipients Of Innovation Fund"...
Is The AFT Trying To Reform Its Image?
(From Newsweek, October 8, 2009)
By PAT WINGERT
Education reformers were pleasantly stunned when the American Federation of Teachers announced today that two of the winners of their new Innovation Fund grants planned to use the money to create teacher-evaluation systems that give weight to students' standardized test scores. The idea of considering gains (or the lack thereof) in student test scores when evaluating the effectiveness of teachers is an idea that reformers have pushed for years. But it's also an idea that the AFT, the country's second-largest union, as well as its rival, the National Education Association, has repeatedly dissed, insisting that research doesn't prove that teacher quality and test scores correlate. In fact, AFT President Randi Weingarten, while head of the New York City teachers' union, helped push through state legislation banning use of student test scores in teacher evaluations for tenure.
But perhaps now that the Obama administration has not only embraced the idea but is requiring that states hoping to get a piece of the Department of Education's $4.35 billion Race to the Top grant money must be willing to link teacher evaluations to student performance, the AFT has decided they'd better get a hand in this game. "This is a real about-face, especially after they put up a firewall in New York State to prevent districts from using student test scores when evaluating teachers," said Amy Wilkins of Education Trust, a nonprofit education-reform group. "It's really encouraging that they are willing to join this conversation."
"I suspect they want to figure out how to use this data before it's imposed on them," said Joe Williams, of Democrats for Education Reform. "The [legislative] firewall [between student test scores and teacher evaluations] expires next spring, and I think this may be the surest sign we've seen that they will let it expire."
Continue reading "Is The AFT Trying To Reform Its Image?"....
October 6, 2009
Bennet Takes Slot On Education Panel
(From Education Week, October 5, 2009)
By ALYSON KLEIN
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., a former Denver schools chief, has taken the slot on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee made vacant by the death of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.
Sen. Bennet's move was especially welcomed by that subset of Democrats who support policies such as alternative teacher-pay systems and charter schools. Such advocates hope that Mr. Bennet, with his on-the-ground experience, can help fill the void on education issues created by Sen. Kennedy's passing.
"He's bold, he's collaborative, and has real-world experience with affecting change in his home state," said Charles Barone, the director of federal relations for Democrats for Education Reform, a political action committee in New York City.
As the superintendent of the 75,000-student Denver schools, Mr. Bennet helped negotiate changes to the district's ProComp system, which offers performance-based pay to teachers.
Sen. Bennet, who seems particularly interested in teacher-quality issues, is said to be one of the Obama administration's Senate allies on K-12 policy. Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter appointed him to the Senate to replace Ken Salazar, who left to become U.S. secretary of the interior.
Continue reading "Bennet Takes Slot On Education Panel"...
October 5, 2009
Ready, Set, Go
(From The Economist, October 1, 2009)
BETWEEN classes at Fenger High School, on the far South Side of Chicago, hundreds of students churn through the halls. Elizabeth Dozier, the new principal, keeps a watchful eye. "Let's go, gentlemen!" she shouts. "Let's go to class!" Ms Dozier wears a two-way radio to deal with problems the minute they arise. One is small: the girls' toilets have no paper towels. One is bigger: there's a brawl upstairs. It's not to be ignored: on September 24th an honour-roll student was beaten to death near Fenger, swept up in senseless violence.
For an idea of the task confronting Arne Duncan, Barack Obama's education secretary, Fenger is a good place to start. The school lies closer to Indiana's mills than Chicago's Magnificent Mile. From 2006 to 2008 fewer than 3% of pupils met Illinois's meagre standards of achievement. But this year everything is supposed to change. The Chicago school district chose Fenger as a "turnaround". Old teachers have been sacked and new programmes put in place. Fenger faces formidable odds. But if Mr Duncan has his way, the school's transformation will be the start of a larger shift.
Mr Duncan, the former chief of Chicago's schools, finds himself in an unprecedented position. No education secretary has ever had so much money to drive reform. Thanks largely to the federal stimulus, he has more than $10 billion, including $3.5 billion to turn around schools. More than $4 billion will go to states that pursue specific initiatives: final guidelines for applications will be issued this autumn, and states are scurrying to prepare. Mr Duncan calls the money a "moon shot"--for his department and for the country.
Continue reading "Ready, Set, Go"....
New Study Makes Irrefutable Case For Charter Schools
(From The Buffalo News, October 4, 2009)
By KATIE CAMPOS and JAMES GARDNER
Buffalo School Superintendent James Williams picked a rotten time to oppose the growth of charter schools.
A new, multiyear study of New York City's charter schools by Stanford University economist Caroline Hoxby shows that students who attended charter schools not only outperformed their counterparts in traditional, inner-city public schools, they also closed much of the "achievement gap" between inner-city and suburban schools.
The study finds that students in inner- city charter schools from kindergarten through eighth grade, who are predominantly African-American and disproportionately poor, achieved nearly the same scores on state math exams as their peers in more affluent suburban schools and made significant gains on state English exams.
For decades, opponents of school choice, namely the teachers' unions, have dismissed any success of charter schools by suggesting that any increase in test scores was accomplished by stealing or "creaming" successful public school students.
Continue reading "New Study Makes Irrefutable Case For Charter Schools"....
